You can now withdraw Upwork earnings to JazzCash, Easypaisa in minutes. By Abdul Wasay | 1 hour ago | Upwork has quietly rolled out a new withdrawal option for Pakistani freelancers. According to a Facebook post, the platform now lets users send earnings directly to local mobile wallets in PKR. Five wallets currently appear on the list: JazzCash, Easypaisa, NayaPay, SadaPay, and Finja. The feature started appearing in Pakistani accounts on November 6. Each withdrawal costs a flat $1.99, roughly PKR 551 at current rates. That fee sits between Upwork's existing options for Pakistan. Direct to Local Bank costs $0.99 but takes up to four business days. Meanwhile, wire transfers cost $50 and suit only large amounts. Payoneer works but adds its own conversion fees on top. The wallet option offers a middle ground: slightly more expensive than bank transfers, but the money typically arrives within minutes. However, there is an important inconsistency worth noting. The in-app popup clearly shows the $1.99 fee. Yet Upwork's official help pages currently say the fee "varies by wallet" without listing the fixed amount. This suggests the rollout may still be in a testing phase, even though real users can already set it up and withdraw. Setting up the feature involves a few straightforward steps. Freelancers go to Settings, then Withdrawals, and add a new method. They select "Local Wallet" and enter their wallet details. Importantly, the name on the wallet must exactly match the verified name on Upwork. After setup, activation takes up to three days. Once active, withdrawals land almost instantly. For Pakistan's freelance economy, this matters more than a minor payment update might suggest. Pakistani freelancers earned a record $1.76 billion in FY2025-26, according to State Bank data. That figure jumped 78% from the previous year. The country now hosts roughly three million freelancers, making it the world's fourth-largest freelance market. Upwork remains one of the top platforms they use alongside Fiverr. Previously, most Pakistani freelancers relied on Payoneer as their primary cash-out route. That process involves withdrawing from Upwork to Payoneer, then from Payoneer to a local bank or JazzCash, each step carrying its own fees and delays. The direct wallet option eliminates that intermediary entirely. Consequently, freelancers keep more of their earnings and access them faster. The rollout also reflects Upwork's broader global expansion of payment options. However, the platform faces its own challenges. It laid off 25% of its workforce in May 2026 and reported declining revenue in Q2. Adding local payment methods in high-growth freelance markets like Pakistan may help it compete against platforms offering smoother payout experiences. For now, freelancers should verify the fee on their own withdrawal screen before finalizing. The $1.99 figure comes from the in-app popup rather than the official help documentation, which has not caught up yet.

Upwork: short-term survival doesn't mean long-term relevance. 34.57K Followers Summary. * Upwork rallied ~10% post-Q3 earnings despite worsening revenue contractions and ongoing secular headwinds. * I maintain a "Sell" rating on UPWK, as upward guidance momentum does not offset concerns about long-term sustainability. * The recent stock rebound (+20% since September) appears disconnected from fundamental challenges facing the business. * Investors remain skeptical of UPWK's position in the AI era, questioning its ability to reverse negative trends. So far throughout the Q3 earnings season, the stock market's reaction to largely healthy corporate earnings has been something like a whimper. Investors continue to look for all reasons to sell off stocks, especially against the backdrop of higher interest rates. That said, a few exceptions are rising, particularly among discarded rebound plays. Upwork (UPWK), a freelance and contractor talent platform that has been a victim of the AI rally this year, just reported Q3 results and rallied ~10% as a result. At the same time, its revenue contractions have only worsened, raising bona fide questions about its long-term sustainability. I last wrote a "Sell" article on Upwork in September, when the stock was trading at $9 per share. Since then, after considering Upwork's ~10% post-earnings rally, the stock is up roughly 20% since I last checked in, a significant rebound for a company that, in my view, is facing steep secular headwinds. I remain unconvinced that Upwork is truly entering into a better chapter in the AI era, and I'm reiterating my "Sell" rating here. The first thing we should address: Upwork's post-earnings rally is largely a function of its upward guidance momentum. Alongside its Q3 print, the company has lifted its full-year outlook to call for $742-$750 million in revenue, or a 6% to 5% y/y decline. This is slightly raised to the tune of $12 million, or just shy of ~2 points of growth, relative to a previous $730-$750 million range. But perhaps more relevant for investors who are judging Upwork for its recent efficiency moves (it laid off a huge amount of staff amounting to ~24% of its workforce earlier this year), the company is also now expecting $236-$240 million in adjusted EBITDA at a midpoint 31.9% margin, about a point higher than 31.1% previously. Yes, this is evidence that Upwork is making good on its promise to deliver a stronger bottom line even as it faces top-line pressure. And especially after the stock's ~50% decline since the start of the year, it can be considered cheap. At current post-earnings rally share prices near $11, Upwork trades at a market cap of ~$1.33 billion. Netting off the $304.3 million of cash against zero debt on the company's latest balance sheet (which remains another big plus for the company, as it has significant financial resources and flexibility with its sizable net cash position) gives us an enterprise value of $1.03 billion. Looking ahead to next year FY27, Wall Street is currently expecting Upwork to deliver $734.4 million in revenue, or a ~2% decline from this year's midpoints (estimates may nudge a bit higher as the Street digests stronger-than-expected Q3 results). If we assume a further ~2-point increase in adjusted EBITDA margins to ~34% (about half of the company's current pace of margin expansion), adjusted EBITDA in FY27 would hit ~$249.7 million (+5% y/y). This puts Upwork's valuation multiples at: * 4.3x EV/FY26 adjusted EBITDA * 4.1x EV/FY27 adjusted EBITDA If this was a business that wasn't facing existential doubt, I'd be all-in on a value stock of this magnitude amid an expensive stock market that is worried about the sustainability of the AI trade. But the truth of the matter is that Upwork's revenue declines are worsening, and I have huge doubts about how achievable its ambitious AI TAM is. Moreover, I fear that a lot of the AI-related services that the company is performing today are one-time and consultative. Once companies have more fully integrated agentic AI into their everyday workflows, businesses may no longer hire outside consultants from the likes of Upwork to help do that initial setup for them. All in all, there's no doubt that Upwork is executing above quite-low expectations in the near term, but that's no guarantee at all for its long-term survival. I continue to prefer remaining on the sidelines here. Q3 download. Let's now go through Upwork's latest quarterly results in greater detail. The Q3 earnings summary is shown below: Upwork's revenue declined 8% y/y to $185.6 million, though this beat Wall Street's expectations of $180.2 million (-11% y/y) by a three-point margin. The company itself had only guided to a $176-$184 million range and came in above the high end of that range. Do note, however, that y/y trends worsened: sequentially from Q2, Upwork's revenue decelerated by six points relative to a 2% y/y decline in Q2. The key metric to watch here is the company's GSV, or gross services value: the sum of dollar total of all the services procured by clients on Upwork's platform (Upwork's take rate then determines how much revenue it generates as a percentage of that GSV volume). GSV contraction is the driving force behind the revenue deceleration: GSV fell 10% y/y in the quarter, worsening relative to a 4% y/y decline in Q2. Similar to its rival Fiverr (FVRR), Upwork is trying to sell investors the same story that the GSV that the company is losing is mostly lower-value work. However, the company touts the fact that it's serving higher-value, upmarket customers. GSV per active customer grew 7.6% y/y to an average of $5,420, the strongest y/y growth rate in years. That said, average GSV can also rise because the denominator, or the customer base itself, is in decline. Upwork's active client count in Q3 fell 10% y/y to 717k, representing a net loss of 46k customers quarter-over-quarter. The company notes that AI-related GSV grew 55% y/y to $112 million. But again, I have doubts that this level of work can be sustained beyond merely the next few years: the driving force of agentic AI is automation and removing the need for outside contractors and consultants. Even as the company enjoys greater volume of work from AI in the near term, it's not enough to offset losses in other parts of the business. On the profitability side, adjusted EBITDA rose 7% y/y to $63.8 million, hitting a 34% margin that improved 4 points versus 30% in the year-ago quarter, with the company benefiting from the significant layoffs that it announced in May. Key takeaways. In my view, Upwork's post-Q3 rally is more of a dead-cat bounce rather than the beginning of a bona fide turnaround in this stock. We can hardly ignore the fact that revenue growth and GSV growth are both decaying at a faster rate (and the midpoint of the company's guidance for Q4 suggests trends will worsen further to a 14% revenue decay, six points worse than Q3). Though Upwork is certainly cheap (which represents the major "upside risk" in this stock), it's also an investment of questionable long-term quality, and I prefer to maintain caution from the sidelines here. 34.57K Followers With combined experience of covering technology companies on Wall Street and working in Silicon Valley, and serving as an outside adviser to several seed-round startups, Gary Alexander has exposure to many of the themes shaping the industry today. He has been a regular contributor on Seeking Alpha since 2017. He has been quoted in many web publications and his articles are syndicated to company pages in popular trading apps like Robinhood. Analyst's Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.